dealt with under section 17 of Ordinance No.1 of 1932
(which I will refer to as section 17). It seems to
me, however, unfair to use the same term to describe
both classes of children, or, at least, to call the
unfortunate children dealt with under section 17
"youthful offenders", and, as I have already said, to
send them to an institution branded as a reformatory
school, established under sections 10(1) and 11 of this
Ordinance. I am not sure how much of this Ordinance
It seems
is meant to apply to section 17 children.
clear that parts are not; e.g. section 7 (cf.the second
passage in brackets in the penultimate paragraph of
section 17(1) of Ordinance No.1 of 1932, and also
section 17(3)); section 20 (cf.section 17(3)(v) of
Ordinance No.1); and section 24 (cf. section 17(3)(ii)
to (iv)). On the other hand, it is possible that others
are meant to apply, e.g. sections 16 and 25. If (16)
applies, apparently (21) would also apply, but I doubt
whether it should. In this connection I see that
sections 8(3) and 31(1) use the words "child" and
"children", and this may be done in order to include
section 17 cases. The fact remains that the
? youthfeel
definition of "juvenile offenders" also includes them.
Sections 9 and 13 use the word "persons". These
sections cannot, I think, apply to children under
section 17, as the word "sentences" would hardly be
appropriate. It may be that the words "detention"
and "detained" are not applicable to section 17 cases
they are certainly not desirable words to apply and
that the use of these words would exclude the applica-
tion to those cases of most of the Ordinance.
I see,
however, that the word "detained" is used in both
sections 8(3) and 31(1), which, as I have suggested
above, it seems are intended to apply to section 17.
My criticism amounts to this: the Ordinance
-
should